To a tender woman her God is but the extreme of the tenderness, the beauty, the compassion which she feels, and the narrowness which she has but does not realise. And cannot you see in your mind's eye the German Emperor's God clanking round the heavenly mansions wearing a German pickelhaube and swearing German oaths? Man's God is but what he admires most in himself. He can be propitiated, he can be bribed. The savage does it with a bowl of milk or a honey cake, the mediaeval man did it with a chapel or a painted window. You say this idea has ceased. Have you ever prayed to God and said, "Spare me this time and I will be good in future. I will do this. I will do that." Or, more beautifully, "Spare him that I love and let the punishment fall on me. Let me bear his sins." Is not the very idea of atonement expressed by Christ's life? A price has to be paid to God. He must be bought off. Man's attitude before God must be that of the child, submissive with downcast eyes, full of praise, never daring to blame. "Tell me and I will obey, do not punish me or I perish." Then there is the attitude of the believer in eternal law. For him the world holds no caprice, no leaning to one side or another, no revenge, no mercy. Each act carries with it an inevitable result: reward if the act be good, punishment if it be bad. You can break a command of God. He may tell you to do a thing and you may refuse. You cannot break a law. It is the inevitable, the everlasting. You cannot rebel against law. The sin is not rebellion, but ignorance. The attitude is not submission, but inquiry, the thirst for truth. Adam lost Eden because he sought for the knowledge of good and evil. But the law-believer says that only in wisdom, only in truth, is there any hope. He stands before the eternal verities with clear eyes to see them, with a strong heart to bear what his ignorance may make him suffer. Out of his pain he will learn the sequences of life. He has gained much. What has he lost? Are not mercy and fatherly care, forgiveness and love, beautiful things? Yet they, too, are of God. If you know not of Him, only of Law, have you not lost out of your life some of the greatest thoughts? How will you comfort your heart when it is sore if you have not God? Is prayer nothing? Truly, said the man, these are beautiful things. If I could have them alone. But I cannot. I fear the other qualities more than I love these. I would have neither. I would be a man and live under Law. It seems to me enough. If Law be absolute I see no room for God.